CRICKET: Weymouth chairman John Ryan hopeful of top-four place

WEYMOUTH chairman John Ryan is delighted with the recent success of the club’s first XI, as they head into battle at Broadstone tomorrow (1pm).

Spin bowler Ryan is set to take his place in a side that blew the Premier One standings wide open last weekend with a home win over table-topping Parley.

It gets no easier for Weymouth as Broadstone sit level on points with Parley at the top of the league table.

But, in a campaign that Ryan and skipper Kieron Womble initially believed would be a tough fight for survival, Weymouth have surpassed all of the chairman’s expectations, and he sees no reason why they cannot push for another victory this weekend.

“We are over the moon with our position at the moment,” he said.

“We have to reassess our position now because we’ve had such a good start.

“We really want to be in that top four when the league splits into two at the end of July.

“If we can get in there we then have licence to play extravagant cricket with a safe knowledge that we are not going to be embroiled in a relegation battle.”

On tomorrow’s encounter, he added: “We are going there with confidence and we won’t be coming up against any strangers in Broadstone.

“Our records are fairly similar and if we can get at them there is no reason why we can’t pull off another victory.”

Ryan also heaped praise on captain Womble for instilling a new, unpressured mentality in the side.

“Kieron has brought a sense of fun to the dressing room,” he added.

“He is a jovial character who everyone in the squad gets on with, and when you walk into the dressing room something is always going on and there is always a little bit of banter.

“Sometimes in tough games we did look around the dressing room and thought it was going to be an unenviable task, but it’s not like that now.”

On the pitch, the chairman believes the potent Weymouth seam attack superb commitment in the field are paying dividends.

He added: “A lot of the credit has to go to our bowlers, Dan Hutchens, Matt Lawes, David Trotter and Simon Browne.

“The bowling and fielding effort has helped us to restrict teams to low scores and credit must also go to Jim Ryall behind the stumps and Dean Janaway, who has also found form with the bat.

“You never know, if results go our way we could wake up on Sunday morning at the top of the league.”